By Megha Satyanarayana

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

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Malice Green, 35, who witnesses say was beaten with flashlights after being approached by police officers as he sat in a car in 1992, is shown in an undated file photo. / AP

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Nearly 20 years after being convicted for killing 35-year-old Malice Green on Detroit’s west side, former Detroit Police officer Larry Nevers, 72, has died.

Although a cause of death was not immediately available, the embattled policeman lived in Macomb Township with his wife and had long suffered from lung cancer and emphysema. The Macomb County Medical Examiner’s Office said Nevers’ body was released to family on Sunday. A message seeking comment from his wife, Macomb Township Trustee Nancy Nevers, was not immediately returned.

"Larry was a very resilient person. He was strong in his convictions," said attorney John Goldpaugh, who defended the ex-officer on second-degree murder charges in 1992 and 1993.

Nevers spent much of his life after trying to clear his name. According to police reports and court documents, on Nov. 5, 1992, plainclothes officers Nevers and his partner, Walter Budzyn, approached Green in a parked car outside a drug house on West Warren Avenue and 23rd Street. Green was 35 and an unemployed steel worker. Police and witness accounts said that Green exited the car to speak with officers and re-entered after being asked for identification. Officers said they saw he had something in his right hand and he wouldn’t open it. Reports said the officers inflicted several blows to Green’s hand with patrol flashlights. Pieces of crack cocaine were found at the scene.

Witnesses said Green was pulled from the car by one of the officers and beaten. Police Chief Stanley Knox said the beating continued even while ambulances were arriving to the scene. One EMS driver reportedly sent a message to supervisors asking what to do.

Nevers and Budzyn were suspended with five other officers the next morning. At the time, Nevers had been with the police department for 24 years and was nine months shy of retirement.

The beating death of a black man by two white police officers deepened the racial divide in the region.

Their heavily publicized trial lofted Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy into the spotlight. Worthy had no comment Monday.

Both men were convicted of second-degree murder in 1993. Their convictions were overturned on appeals in 1997. But Nevers was convicted in a new trial of involuntary manslaughter, and served about four years in prison. He was released in 2001.

"He never should have been convicted for second-degree murder," said Goldpaugh. "I am sure that on his deathbed, he believed that."

Over the years, the house at 3410 West Warren Avenue, now barely standing, has been converted into a memorial.